Exes and Ohs
by MaidenMoonshine
Summary: One of Ziva's ex-boyfriends shows up and scares her. She runs to Gibbs for help. One-shot based on a prompt from ThisBadge. WARNING: contains heavy subject matter about abusive relationships. Part of the One Year of Posting Celebration.


**Hi, everyone! **

**If you haven't read "Mother" (my first NCIS: Los Angeles mini one-shot!) yet - posted earlier today! - then you might not know that today is one year since I started posting on this account. I think that calls for celebration, don't you? So today is a grand story fest! Enjoy it while you can, since I am an active participant in NaNoWriMo and may be slow on uploading new material for the rest of the month. ;) Oh, the sacrifices we make for literature! **

**Well, for this celebration, I had to include a one-shot based of off a prompt from a reader. ThisBadge, I'm sorry that this took so long! It was a harder story for me to write, but I hope that I was able to achieve something that you can enjoy. :) Thanks for the idea and the challenge. Even though it was sad, it was very thought provoking. **

**Below is the original prompt from ThisBadge: **

_**ThisBadge**_**_ -_**_** I'm a huge Ziva fan, but doing the math, she came to Team Gibbs really young, like early 20s young. And given some of the things that she's said and episodical evidence, I don't think that she's made the best choices dating.**_

_**Could you write something where an ex of hers shows up and completely throws her for a loop?**_

**WARNING: HEAVY SUBJECT MATTER AHEAD. REFERENCES TO ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS. IF THIS WILL TRIGGER YOU, PLEASE DO NOT READ!  
**

**Now, all that is left for you all to do is read and enjoy! And make sure to check the bottom to know where to look for the next story surprise of this celebration! **

...

Ziva was having a great day.

First of all, she was in before even Gibbs. When he came in and gave her that proud smile, she was pleased. She loved her father figure's approval.

Second - and maybe she should not have been so happy about this fact - but Tony was half an hour late. That just made her look all the better. Tony got a head slap and was told to be more conscientious like her. She stuck her tongue out at him once Gibbs turned her back, breaking from her usual professional demeanor to triumph over her co-worker.

They had a busy case and she got to interview the owner of a knife store. He was young and handsome and from Israeli roots - AND he seemed to think that she was worth impressing. Sure, grumpy Tony, who was still rubbing the sting out of his head from repeated head slaps, was along for the interview and was rather annoying, but it was fun to add teasing him into the mix.

The pizza they had for lunch was some of the best she had eaten in months. Tim beat Tony in their current prank war. Gibbs praised her for finding a lead that everyone else had overlooked. She had tea with Ducky. She got to take evidence to Abby. She saw Jimmy's vacation photos. She had run some paperwork up to the director for Gibbs and Jenny had given her a kiss on the cheek and a scarf she had found on her latest European trip. And now Ziva had a new catalogue of knives to peruse while she took a relaxing bath at home that night.

It was a great day.

That is, it was a great day until she arrived at her apartment to the sight of Aleksander on her doorsteps.

She stopped and stared.

Her heart stopped too.

Once he saw her, he stood and grinned, assured of gaining his prize.

"Ziva!" he called, the animalistic lust clear in his voice.

"Alek," she whispered, the horror clear in hers.

She turned and ran.

And she kept running because she could hear Aleksander behind her.

...

Gibbs was working on his boat. It had been a normal day at work and now he was winding down in a normal way.

That was, until he heard someone slam his front door open with a vengeance and run toward the stairs. He was immediately alert.

"Gibbs!"

Ziva's panicked yell - _had he ever heard her speak in that tone?_ \- drove him to run to the foot of the stairs. Ziva nearly tumbled down the steps, rushing to his side before pausing to listen.

"What ...?" Gibbs demanded, taking hold of her shoulders and trying to get an answer from the clearly shaken girl.

"He ... he ... chase ... help!" Ziva panted.

"Who is chasing you?" Gibbs demanded.

"Alek. Aleksander ... Perez!" she gasped. "Make him ... go away!"

"Who is he?" Gibbs asked, peering up the stairs.

"An old boyfriend!"

Gibbs gently tilted her chin so that she would focus on him instead of darting her eyes all over the room.

"Did he chase you all the way here?"

"I do ... not know. He was on my front steps when I got ... home. He said that ... he had missed me, and I turn and ran away. I could here him behind me at different points, but ..."

"Shh shh shhh," he soothed, stepping away and holding up his finger as a signal for her to stay. "I'll go check upstairs."

"Take a gun!" Ziva uncharacteristically squeaked.

Gibbs frowned at the nervousness that he could here in Ziva's voice. Miss Independence was shaking in his basement after running for what would have been at least half an hour of terror. He already knew that he hated this Aleksander Perez.

He carefully went up the stairs and looked around the living room. Ziva had left the front door open in her haste and he strode over, looking outside. His quick eyes spotted the movement on the street.

"Perez?" he yelled. The figure turned and ran off into the night. Gibbs closed the door, grabbed his cell phone off of the nearby bench, and dialed quickly.

"Tony, I need you to get over here and search my neighbourhood for an Aleksander Perez. I don't know who his is or what he looks like, but he's dressed in black and on the run. He chased Ziva here from her apartment and she's terrified. I'll call McGee as well."

...

"He ran off. Tony's going to be looking within the next few minutes, and McGee will be in the area as soon as he can get here. You're safe here, Ziver. Just sit down and take a deep breath, then tell me why you are so scared of this guy."

For once, Ziva did not protest that she was not scared. Instead she sat down and wiped her tears away with the back of her hand.

Gibbs was starting to feel scared too.

"What did he do to you?" he demanded gently, kneeling in front of her and looking up into the watery brown eyes.

"Just what everyone else did," she whispered brokenly.

Gibbs' gut twisted.

"What did they do?"

Ziva shook her head angrily, tears dripping off her nose.

"I do not want to talk about it."

"You need to. I need to know to help you, Zi."

Ziva took a deep gasping breath.

"He kissed me, hugged me, made me trust him."

Gibbs waited, silently supportive. He squeezed her hand, trying to transfer some of his courage to her through osmosis.

"Gibbs, I let him touch me ... make ... love to me!" She began to shake her head back and forth, trying to think more clearly. "Not love, not love," she muttered, correcting herself. Despite the situation, Gibbs was pleased to see the patient teaching and relationship beginning to pay off in the assassin's heart.

"We had sex. That was all he wanted."

"But not what you wanted?"

"No."

"That bas..." Gibbs began to growl, but Ziva quickly interrupted.

"I did think that I wanted it, back then. But like everyone else, he changed. We both would get angry. I can hurt people, Gibbs, but all those men - they had the same training!"

Ziva paused to catch her breath. She was beginning to speak more easily. Her eyes told Gibbs that she was relieved to finally have someone listen and believe her side of the story.

"I was eighteen, just starting in the IDF, when it was Aleksander. He was three years older and had that much more training. He was one of my father's men and he was good. When we had fights, he always won. He liked winning."

"I wish that I could have been there to stop him, Ziver."

"But that was not the worst part, Gibbs!"

Gibbs just patiently waited for her to continue, hoping that McGee and DiNozzo would have reason to fire at the guy when they located him.

"He ... left me!" The brokenness in her voice was sharp. "He left! They all left. They have always left - my whole life. And again and again in the beginning, he left too!"

The final statement was no doubt about Eli, Gibbs realized. That was another person who he would not feel too badly about shooting. He could not kill Eli David - despite her ever increasing wound from her father, Ziva still loved him - but would it be too evil to enjoy giving him a flesh wound?

But the hard truth was that Gibbs could do nothing to undo everything that had happened to his sweet little Ziva - he knew her heart longed for gentleness and love rather than the harsh realities that had tried to drain every bit of good from her soul. All that he could do for her now was to hold her in his arms, call her a brave girl, and kiss her forehead, promising that he would not leave her.

"Please believe me, Ziver," he whispered in her ear, cherishing this moment where they could both be vulnerable.

"I will try," she whispered. And he knew that she would.

And later on, when McGee and DiNozzo stopped by to announce that Perez was in jail, not only for harassing Ziva but for having drugs and unlicensed weapons on him, they hugged their friend as well.

"I'll always have your six," Tony promised fiercely after finally releasing her from a tight embrace.

"I ... I know," Ziva said softly, just the slightest bit more confidently.

"You can all crash here for the night," he told them, relieved when they all took him up on the offer. Tim even grabbed his phone and called Abby so that their favourite, family-focused scientist would not feel left out on a group sleepover. What no one said was that Abby was better at bringing smiles to sad faces than anyone else, and Ziva definitely needed to relax after her trying ordeal. He noticed that Ziva was on the phone herself. Although her voice was muted, he could tell that she was talking to Jenny who was away for a meeting in France. Despite the distance, he could see that Jenny's words relaxed their shared daughter.

As soon as Abby arrived, all kisses, hugs, and comfort, he locked the door. There was no one else to keep it open for - the whole family was home. Today had been a hard day among many hard days, but at least one of his kids was closing to healing her heart.

And once Ziva was back to her normal indomitable self, he was going to sit down her and go over every relationship she had ever had. And then he was going to track down every single one of those men and make sure they knew that she was his little girl and if they messed with her, they would be messing with him!

Ziva was no longer going to be a victim of heartless men. She was adored and protected by her family.

And anyone who ever tried to hurt his kids? BEWARE!

...

**Although that was a little (or a lot) heavier than normal, I hope that you were able to enjoy it! **

**Keep on the lookout for the next part of this event - the next chapter of "The Finding of Cable"! From there, who knows what will be next?! ;) **


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